"You would?"
"Yes. I would. Now. Why don't you take that thing off your chest?"
"I shouldn't do that."
"Yes. You should. It's the right thing to do."
"You really think so?"
"Yes. I do."
"And you'll stay with me?"
"I promise."
His little mouth puckered up. "Don't you want to go into the grass and the trees?" he said.
"Not yet. And I don't want you to, either." "We could do it later, right?"
She said, "I'm going to take the lighter and get that thing off you now. Okay?"
"Oh, I don't think you should do that," he said.
"I don't think the shells will make their sound for you if you have it on. They're very sensitive."
"Oh. Well. Okay."
And just that easily, he handed her the lighter. Here it was, a piece of red plastic you could buy anywhere for ninety-nine cents. She slipped it into the pocket of her jeans.
She helped him out of his jacket. His chest was bare underneath. He was so thin, his sternum so sunken the bomb must have been heavy for him.
She got a pair of scissors and cut through the tape that held the bomb to his chest. It stuck to his skin as she pulled it away. He winced. She was surprised to find that she hated to hurt him.
When she had the bomb, she put it on the kitchen counter. It was only a footlong piece of pipe, with a cap on either end and a fuse sticking out of a hole drilled in one of the caps. Easy to buy, easy to assemble. It sat on her countertop, next to the coffeemaker and the toaster oven.
He was harmless now. He was just a little boy. "So now we'll go?" he said eagerly.
She paused. She knew what she had to do. She had to take him to see the shells at headquarters. He couldn't hurt her, or anyone, now.
And yet. He was so trusting. He was so happy about being taken to a beach. He had no idea what was about to happen to him. She should at least let him get a little sleep first.
"Not right now," she said.
"No?"
"We should wait until morning. You can't really see them at night."
"Oh. Okay."
"You must be tired. Aren't you?"
"No. Well, maybe a little."
"Come on. You take a nap, and then when the sun's up, we'll go."
"Okay."
She took him into her bedroom, had him take off his jeans. There he was in a pair of tiny underpants. He was so frail. His right shoulder was three inches lower than his left. She tucked him into her bed.
"This bed is nice," he said.
She sat on the edge of the mattress, touched his wispy hair. "Sleep, now," she said.
"If I had a dog, would he really sleep with me at night?"
"Mm-hm."
"Would a dog like to go to the beach?" "Oh, yes. Dogs love the beach." "Did you ever have a dog?"
"A long, long time ago. When I was a little girl." "What was his name?" "Smokey. His name was Smokey." "Smokey's a good name."
"Did you mean it when you told me you don't have a name?"
"Uh-huh."
"Is there some kind of name you call yourself?"
"Not really."
"We should give you a name."
"I like Smokey."
"Smokey is a dog's name."
"Oh."
"Go to sleep now." "Okay."
He closed his eyes. After a few minutes, his breathing evened out.
She sat watching him, this changeling, this goblin child. What would they do with him? He hadn't hurt anyone, that would weigh in his favor, but others would know, as surely as she did herself, that he'd been fully capable of it. Still, he was a child, and a very suggestible one he could be reeducated. And once his picture hit the papers, good Samaritans would be lining up to adopt him after the government had done its work.
But would they release him, ever? People were spooked; people were
seriously
spooked. They'd want to study him, of course, but would they want to rehabilitate him? Not likely. What kind of message would it send, if you could be part of a group that blew up random citizens on the street, undergo intensive therapy, and be released back into society? No, it was zero tolerance for terrorists. Even child terrorists.
Here he was, sleeping in her bed. Here was the devil a malformed child who'd been meant to die in an alley in Buffalo, born prematurely to some woman who'd done God knew how many drugs. Here he was, dreaming about being taken to a beach to hold a shell up to his compromised ear. Willing to be called a dog's name.
* * *
She put the bomb into her bag, along with her copy of
Leaves of Grass. Crazy
to take it with her, but she couldn't leave it in the apartment with the kid, could she? She got her pills from the medicine cabinet, took one into the bedroom with a glass of water, and woke the kid up.
He blinked in confusion. He didn't seem frightened, though, not like a normal kid would in a strange new place. For a while now, everything had been strange to him. It had become the way of the world.
She said, "Sorry to wake you up. I want you to take this pill."
"Okay," he said. Just like that. No questions. Endearing and creepy at the same time.
He opened his mouth. She put the sleeping pill on his tongue, gave him the water. He dutifully swallowed.
"Back to sleep now," she said. She sat with him until he fell asleep again, which took only a few minutes.
Then she slipped quietly out of the apartment and locked him in. As she turned the key she paused for a moment over the possibility of a fire, saw herself as one of those women on the news, the ones who had just run out for a moment for cigarettes or milk, had left the kids alone because there was no one else, no one to watch them, it was always her, only her, and she needed cigarettes, she needed milk, she needed to be someone who could run a simple errand, and then a few minutes later there she was, held back by a fireman or a neighbor, wailing as the flames did their work.
Fuck it. He'd be okay. Please be okay, little killer.
She walked to the precinct. It was fifteen blocks or so, but she wanted the time, she wanted the solitude. She wanted to be somebody walking alone. It seemed briefly to her, as she walked the depopulated streets, that she could slip out of her life altogether, could be just anyone anywhere, herself but unhaunted and unharmed, untutored in the hidden dangers, a woman with a job and a child and the regular array of difficulties, the questions of rent and groceries. It seemed, as she walked, an unimaginable happiness.
Pete was waiting for her in front of the precinct office. He was smoking a cigarette. He'd quit smoking years ago. He stabbed the smoldering butt into his mouth, strode up the block to meet her.
He said, "There's been another one." His voice was soft and low.
For a moment she thought the boy had detonated in her apartment. No, she had the bomb in her bag.
She had a bomb in her bag. Right next to her copy of Whitman.
"Where?" she asked. "Chicago."
"Chicago?"
"It came over the wire twenty minutes ago."
"What do they know?"
"Looks like the same thing."
"In Chicago."
"Shit's still coming in. No IDs yet, but it matches. Single victim, as far as they can tell. Out on Lake Shore Drive."
"Fuck." "Yeah." "What's the old woman told you? Anything?"
"You want to know? You want to know the one and only thing she said since you left?"
"Shoot."
"She said she's waiting to speak to you. Otherwise, nothing."
"I guess I'd better go in there and talk to her, then." "Yeah. I guess you'd better."
She went with Pete into the precinct station, into the interrogation room. The woman was exactly as Cat had left her. Same ramrod posture, same taxidermist eyes. She was surrounded, however, by a half-dozen burly suitors from the FBI.
Pete ushered her in. The FBI guys parted reluctantly. Cat sat across from the woman, who blinked, shook her head slightly, and offered Cat a wry, coquettish smile.
Cat said, "I've been to your apartment." "But he wasn't there, was he?" "No," Cat said. "He wasn't." "He'll be along. I wouldn't worry."
"I saw what's on the walls."
"I thought they should grow up with poetry. It's been good for them, I think."
"Why did you choose Whitman?"
"He's the last of the great ones. Everyone since seems so slight."
"That can't be the only reason."
"Everybody wants a reason, don't they? Let's say this, then. Whitman was the last great man who really and truly loved the world. The machinery was just starting up when he lived. If we can return to a time like Whitman's, maybe we can love the world again."
"That's the message you wanted the boys to get?"
"Oh, I don't think you get a message from poetry, really. You get a sense of beauty. I wanted my boys to understand about beauty. My family is bringing beauty back."
"You said you were part of a big family."
"People are so scattered nowadays. We used to live in villages."
"Where's the rest of your family?"
"I'm afraid we've lost touch."
"I think you can tell me where some of them are."
"No, really, I can't. I've just been raising my babies here in New York. No one ever calls. No one writes."
"You told me, 'It's time.' Someone must have told you that."
"Oh, that was decided a long, long time ago. June 21 of this year. It's the first day of summer. It's when the days start getting shorter. Doesn't it always seem too soon, this early dark?"
A large FBI hand landed on Cat's shoulder. She looked up. Older guy, uncanny resemblance to Bashful in
Snow White.
She'd never met this one.
He said, "We're going to take over now."
"It's been nice talking to you, dear," the woman said.
"Give me a little more time," Cat said.
"We're going to take over now," the man repeated.
She understood. The interrogators were about to step in. Ordinary persuasion had reached its limit.
Cat said to the woman, "It would be better for you to tell me anything you know. Right now. These other people are not going to be gentle with you."
"I don't expect anyone to be gentle with me. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, then."
The woman said, "Take care of him."
"Take care of who?"
The woman laughed, sharply and suddenly. Her laughter was high, crystalline, songlike; although it seemed genuine, she enunciated clearly:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Then, just as suddenly, she stopped.
* * *
Pete walked Cat out to the sidewalk. A breeze, smoke-tinged, was blowing down Pitt Street from the north. Truck horns bellowed from the Williamsburg Bridge.
"Sweet mother of God," Pete said.
"I don't think they're going to get anything more from her."
"You might be surprised. They've brought in the guys who don't take no."
"I mean, I don't think she knows anything." "She knows things."
"Okay. Probably she knows about a plan that was set in motion years ago. Probably she knows a few names that aren't real names, attached to people who won't ever be found."
"These guys can do a lot with a little information."
"I know that."
"You should go home and get some rest."
"What about you?"
"Soon. I'm out of the picture now, too."
"But-"
"It spooks me, is all. I'm going to hang around here a little longer. I'm just not quite ready to go home and get into bed."
"I understand. I can stick around with you."
"Naw. Get some sleep. You're on duty in, like, three hours."
"Right."
"Chicago. Fucking Chicago."
"She said she has a big family."
He closed his eyes, rocked slightly, as if he might lose his balance. He said, "I don't want to think about it."
"Who does?"
"Right," he said. "Who does?"
They stood there together in the 3:00 a.m. quiet. Something was happening. Maybe it was no big deal; maybe it was small and only
looked
big, as Pete had said just a few days ago. It might even be a copycat, some Chicago-based citizen of the Bizarro Dimension who'd looked at the headlines and thought, Hmm, hug somebody and blow him up, interesting idea, why didn't / think of that? Or maybe, at worst, it was a handful of lunatics, scattered around dangerous, yes, but not majorly dangerous, not history-changing dangerous. How many Bolsheviks had brought down the czar? She should know that.
Still. She had a feeling, and she was someone who relied on feelings.
"Pete?"
"Yeah?"
She wanted to tell him that there might be somewhere. There might be grass and mountains, a little house. It wasn't heroic it was in fact more than a little bit cowardly to want to slip away, to think of saving yourself and maybe another person or two, to try to live out your life in some hamlet while other people worked the front lines.
And besides, Pete couldn't go. He had obligations. Even without obligations, he wasn't the house-in-the-country type. He wouldn't know what to do with himself.
Shade and water
The murmur of the world
Your cup and garden
"Don't start smoking again," she said.
"It's just for now."
"Right. See you."
"See you."
She left him there, standing in the quickening air, under the rumble of the Williamsburg Bridge.
* * *
The boy woke up a little after seven. Cat was sitting on the edge of the mattress.
"Hi," he said. "Hi."
"Are we going now?"
"Yes. Let's get your clothes back on."
He jumped out of bed, got into his jeans and jacket. Cat took up a pad of yellow legal paper and a pen.